Monday, June 29, 2009

It could, but it is also conceivable that the brain is a complex radio receiver. To explain the effects of alcohol on the mind, let's say their is alcohol in the radio itself like what happens when a person consumes affect, what happens is the radio is affected and so is the music, that is what happens when people consume alcohol their mind gets altered the same we would expect when their is alcohol in the radio.

On another note here is an interesting article called " ESP and the lottery

Sunday, June 28, 2009

So what is the fear among religionists first, well one is that getting into mediumship is met to be communicating with demons. Which is not true but they see as the work of satan. Now let's get to the fear among mainstream scientists that they would have adjust the laws of physics, and the worldview itself to either a dualistic one or idealism. It has been shown that evidence in support of an afterlife can be objectively looked at, that is why the argument that is used by skeptics that you cannot gather scientific evidence for an afterlife is false. Now let's get to psi phenomena yes the results are very weak however are persistent and won't go away. This is consistent to with the survivalist interpretation because if psi is very weak which experiments have shown though robust makes super psi more unlikely to account for survival evidence.

Here is a link to a blogpost by Dean Radin showing the fear among religionists and Mainstream scientists when it comes to psi phenomena and related phenomena like survival.

http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2009/06/witch-burning.html

Here is an interesting comment made by Gareth on Dean Radin Blog

He says

Some people feel that they are making the braver choice by basing their lives only on what the scientific mainstream has presented to them as fact. People who don't feel the same way are delusional kooks.

Some people feel that they are making the braver choice by basing their lives on challenging orthodoxy and exploring the possibilities that might exist on the fringe. People who don't feel the same way lack imagination and are frightened of the unknown.

Some people just live in the moment.

None of these differences are worth hurting another person over.

I agree it obviously does come with a heavy price to challenge mainstream science.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Without a doubt most orbs probably are dust particles, moisture, weed pollen etc. Is their any orbs that could be spirit energy?, i do think their could well be a tiny percentage of orbs that could be made of this spirit energy, i can only speculate though. Without a doubt also that most paranormal researchers and enthusiasts believe that most orbs if not all are dust particles, moisture and so on. I personally don't put any merit whatsoever in orbs, the minority of paranormal enthusiasts believe some are in fact spirit energy.

Here is a interesting discussion the topic of orbs hosted by medium Marcel Cairo

Friday, June 26, 2009

I feel so empty and sad that one of the greatest singers of all time is dead , some of the music songs i liked was rock with you, thriller, black or white and beat it. One thing that keeps a smile on my face is knowing that he is in the afterlife.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

After looking at all the evidence for survival it looks like to me that reincarnation and survival after death in another reality both exists. I base this on the strong evidence for both views, and that the soul does need to learn physical pain, sorrow etc. This is a tough school we are all in until we die, it's really up to us if we choose to come back to this reality or not. The evidence from mediumship for example is very mixed on this issue of reincarnation, perhaps we reincarnate, perhaps not. This does appear to fit in what i said above that we choose to come back or not. The implication of course for the view that reincarnation is real are very big indeed.

Michael Tymn talks about the group-soul idea, including "Myers' " discussion of it in Cummins' in a earlier book The Road to Immortality. Referring to the mediumship of Maurice Barbanell, Tymn quotes the spirit entity Silver Birch as saying, "... there are what you call ‘group souls,' a single unity with facets which have spiritual relationships that incarnate at different times, at different places, for the purpose of equipping the larger soul for its work."

http://metgat.gaia.com/blog/2007/2/the_inside_scoop_on_reincarnation

Tymn goes on to say :

Silver Birch also likened the soul to an iceberg in which one small portion is manifesting and the greater portion not manifesting. He apparently was referring to what others have called the "Higher Self," the "Greater Self," or the "Oversoul" ...

However, he stressed that the individuality of the "facets" within the Group Soul is maintained.

I like to finish this post with a quote from a scientist in the journal of nervous and mental diseases

Dr Harold Lief wrote of Ian Stevenson: "Either he is making a colossal mistake, or he will be known as the Galileo of the twentieth century."

Sunday, June 14, 2009

I am sorry i don't remember about you saying how the production theory could be falsified. I have a lot on my mind these days. I have also offered a plausible explanation for the combination key lock experiment

"Apparently, deceased Thouless could remember Oram and other similar facts. Now Keith says even though that is so the simpler explanation would be because he didn't remember the simple keys would be that he didn't survive his death. But their are certainly more explanations then that. One explanation would be that he was not communicating with thouless at all but some other entity and was being deceived by this entity. To me the explanation that another entity who pretended to know Oram is more plausible than the explanation that Thousless didn't survive death. Why? because apparently this entity knew Oram, did Oram ask this entity if he could know anything that thousless would know when he was alive?. According to Oram this entity just knew him. So what we have hear is no confirmation that this was indeed Thousless or some other entity pretending to be Thouless".

Keith says

Ditto when talking about the causes of OBEs and NDEs, as it is anything but clear that something leaves the body during them, given the mismash of nonexistent things seen during them, clear cultural influences on them, and reports of veridical perceptions. It's not as if these experiences are always clearly veridical or just unknown. Sometimes people see things that don't exist, as Charles Tart even notes in the conclusion of his OBE chapter in his recent _The End of Materialism_. Given that the evidence is all over the map with respect to theory, I think we would have to establish conclusively that real target identification happens during OBEs/NDEs, the sort that simply couldn't be explained by overhearing things or any other normal means. And I think that's an entirely rational point of view.

Leo- I totally agree this appears to be what is happening now with positive results already in the pilot study of the Aware study on near death experiences.

Keith says

If you keep personal survival, you will be doing so in blatant contradiction of the findings of physiological psychology, maintaining the pilot-to-ship simple dualism implied by the TV show-to-TV, Mars rover, Predator drone, and so on analogies.

Not if the brain is an advanced tv receiver, Keith is presumming that mind brain dependency is so tight that it can't be conceivable that the mind could survive death.

Keith says

Transmission implies that the brain plays a major part in shaping what the mind is while "inside" a living organism, not simply in allowing that mind to control the physical world. Hence why PCP, or LSD, can directly alter the mind, instead of just cutting off the mind's ability to control the body, or perceive the physical world.

Leo- Wait a second, the transmission isn't the brain it's a medium of somekind, that can only be speculated on. We can alter receivers, so the brain itself is being altered while the mind is also being altered, which is information. The real issue here is whether than is an immaterial soul or not, neuroscience is shown that yes mind exists [information] and the brain exists. But what about soul? which is i call our subjective experiences, inner life. Can the soul tranferred all the information from the brain to this soul, this i saw is very possible.

Keith i will explain to you the weaknesses in the particular case you just mentioned that of Rosemary. If you have cases that are bullet proof and really deliver the evidence for the production theory instead of the the very weak cases such as Phineas Gage, and Rosemary Kennedy. I love to see them .

Now let's look at the doubtful case you mentioned.

1] "Rosemary has been described as being a shy child whose I.Q. tests reportedly indicated a moderate mental retardation, but this is a question of some controversy".

Strike one it appears that their is indeed some controversy over what amount if little mental retardation occur to her I.Q.

Her verbal skills were reduced to unintelligible babble. Her mother, Mrs. Rose Kennedy, remarked that although the lobotomy stopped her daughter's violent behavior.

Verbal skills eh, that is the thing this is explained by the fact that her soul was restricted and constrained by particular damage to part of her brain.

"Ronald Kessler, author of The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty He Founded, disagrees with this assessment. He believes that Rosemary's problem was instead mental illness. He says it’s true that Rosemary had always been slower than the other children. But as a teenager, she was able to write endearing letters, dance, and do arithmetic. At the age of nine, Rosemary neatly and correctly multiplied and divided: 428 × 32 = 13696, for example."[7].

So we see that her intelligence was not affected by the lobotomy also her inner subjective character was not affected either .

Keith, sure those five individuals have concluded the same as you, but that doesn't prove your case. As much as me pointing out several neuroscientists who DON'T agree with your position. Such as Dr. Wilder Penfield, Dr. John C Eccles, Karl R. Popper. Keith their is no doubt their is mind brain dependency but how strong is the dependency is the question at stake here. What i am suggesting is yes personality radically changes in many cases, however when the mind brain connection is broken the mind get's immediately restored to an age like 20 years old. It's the soul that get's released from the body and restores all memories, thoughts and feelings after physical death. Also your forgetting that simple dualists know that the mind is information, where the soul is the one that takes over once the body/brain dies.

Perhaps the soul is an abtract entity who uses it's imagination to create an afterlife in the platonic realm.

Would you say that Wilder Penfield's work gave experimental support for mind brain dependency? Wilder Penfield never endorsed this theory, nor did he think that this was the best explanation for his data. Wilder Penfield started out an materialist until he started doing work with epileptic patients.

"For myself, after a professional lifetime spent i trying to discover how the brain accounts for the mind, it comes as a surprise now to discover, during this final examination of the evidence, that the dualist hypothesis seems the more reasonable of the two possible explanations. Mind comes into action and goes out of action with the highest brain-mechanism, it is true. But the mind has energy. The form of that energy is different from that of neuronal potentials that travel the axone pathways. There I must leave it."

You also forget that simple dualism and interaction dualism both propose that the soul is made of a different type of matter, that the soul has a brain too, possibly of dark matter.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Who ever said the better the brain, the better the filter?. If you assume that the main source of consciousness and mind is a medium but not the brain. Your saying that from outside observation that what we observe is damage brain equals damage mind and consciousness. But evidence coming from near death experiences and out of body experiences show that the inner subjective consciousness along with mind[information] is not damaged or destroyed, rather restricted by the brain.

Their is another argument for dualism which i have come across from this site

http://www.afterlifedebate.com/for.html

The argument from geometry, this is based on two premises

1. Additional dimensions besides our own2. A Additional dimension of space and an additional dimension of time would affect our experience, and this conception seems to correlate with dream experience

I seen you mentioned Phineas Gage before where he had a spike go through hishead. You probably see this case as supportive of the production hypothesis. Here is why it isn't consistent with the production hypothesis.

- The uncertainty of Harlow's sources for the changes he describes in Gage, combined with the fact that he waited almost twenty years (between his first and second papers) to communicate those changes, constitute one of the central puzzles of the case.

Current Research

- Recently, an advertisement for a previously-unknown public appearance by Gage has been discovered, as have a report of his behavior during his time in Chile and a description of what may have been his daily work routine there as a long-distance coach driver. This new information suggests that the seriously maladapted Gage described by Harlow may have existed for only a limited time after the accident—that Phineas eventually "figured out how to live"[39] despite his injury, and was in later life far more functional, and socially far better adapted, than has been thought.

If this is so then (along with theoretical implications) it "would add to current evidence that rehabilitation can be effective even in difficult and long-standing cases," according to Macmillan. To better understand the question, Macmillan and collaborators are actively seeking additional evidence on Gage's life and behavior.[40]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

The case above is usually presented to be one of the best cases if not the best evidence that materialists have used based on.

-Harlow's observation which is very questionable based on him taking almost 20 years to communicate changes he saw in Phineas Gage, between his first and second papers. Possible embellishment, could be. However, materialists insists on taking Harlow's account as a trustworthy source. Now with new evidence which i posted above it's even more likely that the personality changes that Harlow's said occur weren't as dramatic as he said they were.

This case based on these facts show that this case is consistent with the filter or transmission theory. It also shows that the mind brain close link to eachother is not as close as what is assumed.

Another piece of evidence which appears to be consistent with the production hypothesis is the split brain experiments, HOWEVER, it appears that two conscious streams of consciousness didn't happen at all.

Due to its inherent private character, an actual co-consciousness is impossible to prove conclusively, and one self with only temporary functional dissociation is even the best explanation as split-brain patients normally show a remarkable psychological and motoric unity that can hardly be reconciled with the somatogenic creation of a new nonphysical subject by commisurectomy.

More here about split brain experiments

http://www.geocities.com/athanasiafoundation/Dualismlives.htm

Keith says

We're not talking about mere influence here. We're talking about radical modification. When you strike a tuning fork against a status, that strike influences the statue in barely noticable ways. When you light some dynamite placed in the middle of it, the dynamite radically modifies the statue. The latter is the sort of brain "influence" on mind we're talking about. And it occurs in contradiction to what dualism predicts: that the mind is one thing, the brain another thing, and the two things interact with each other (hence: interactionist substance dualism). Just as I can't modify my body (get a facelift, say, or make myself grow 3 more feet overnight) merely by "willing it," my brain should not be able to turn my personality into that of a totally different sort of person merely by interacting with it. The PCP example does not fit what one would expect if substance dualism were true. Radical brain changes can result in radical changes of one's mind. There is no evidence that the mind can change the body in so radical a way. You can't think "grow muscles" really hard and make it so. Only physical activity can do that. So clearly the mind is far more more dependent on the brain than any converse claim that the brain depends on the mind. Schizophrenics can't just wish their schizophrenia away. This is why the brain is treated as primary and the mind as secondary. If their powers were reversed, and the brain hardly influenced the mind at all, but one could will changes in the physical world and watch them happen (think: changing the channel without a remote control), the mind would be considered primary and the brain secondary. The reason that this is not the case is because that's now how it works in the real world.

My response

Experiments on humans (some of the Buddhist monks under the Dalai Lama’s direction) seem to demonstrate that the physical organ of the brain can be shaped and transformed by choices made by the mind.

Without mind though you can't make goals to acheive arm muscle. Then their is introspection studies down that bring further evidence for dualism. Let's also not forget the failure of behaviorism which goal was to provide evidence that the mind was produced by the brain. Also artifical intelligence main goal was to show the mind can be put into an robot another failure.

Keith says

"It seems inescapable to me that any form of substance dualism is committed to predicting that the mind (the controller) is largely independent from the brain (the drone's transmitter/receiver). The worst you can do to the controller by manipulating the drone's transmitter/receiver is make the controller deaf or blind regarding the drone's environment, or unable to move the drone. You cannot affect the the controller's ability to do math, to understand language, or recognize undistorted faces. You cannot get the controller to go into a psychotic rage by manipulating the drone's radio. But you can make someone psychotic by spiking his drink with PCP, or prevent him from being able to do simple addition by lesioning certain areas of his brain. In short, basic neuroscientific facts are simply inexplicable on any variety of substance dualism."

My response

Unless that receiver is very advanced, the maybe a very advanced receiver. Also you seem to be assuming that dualists believe a soul is controlling the physical body, i don't think many dualists hold that view, they hold that this soul is restricted and heavily constrained by the physical body. The brain is a reducing valve to consciousness.

Also i like to quote Keith here when he says

That Phineas Gage's personality changes might not be as dramatic as previously reported does not show that his brain damage resulted in no dramatic personality changes. The Gage example is commonly used in Introduction to Psychology textbooks, and that is why it is typically cited, but numerous other examples could be mentioned.

Here he is begging the question why you ask?. Here is why.

The uncertainty of Harlow's sources for the changes he describes in Gage, combined with the fact that he waited almost twenty years (between his first and second papers) to communicate those changes, constitute one of the central puzzles of the case.

-Harlow's observation which is very questionable based on him taking almost 20 years to communicate changes he saw in Phineas Gage, between his first and second papers. Possible embellishment, could be. However, materialists insists on taking Harlow's account as a trustworthy source. Now with new evidence which i posted above it's even more likely that the personality changes that Harlow's said occur weren't as dramatic as he said they were.

No doubt Phineas Gage that their was some effect on his personality, any theory that looks to Gage for support faces the difficulty that the nature and extent of the injury's effects on his mental state are highly uncertain. In fact, very little is known about what Phineas was like either before or after his injury (almost none of it first-hand),[22] the mental changes described after his death were far more dramatic than anything reported while he was alive, and even those descriptions which seem credible do not tell us the period of his post-accident life to which they are meant to apply. This shows also that the mind brain linkage often cited by materialists is not as close as what is assumed.

Douglas Stokes also says in one of his parapsychological books that the medium Arthur Ford, who "broke" the Houdini code, "was discovered to have kept elaborate files on prospective sitters." So the Wikipedia entry's explanation of how Ford broke it, by reading the solution off of Houdini's wife's engraved ring when he handled it for "psychometry," certainly seems plausible. (That said, I don't know more about this case than that tidbit; and I'm characterizing it from memory, so see the Wikipedia entry itself for the specifics.)

My response

So i am suppose to assume that Arthur Ford was a fraud, because of an anecdote says that may of happened?.

Keith also says

I don't suppose that you'd argue that Rosemary Kennedy's mind was hardly affected by her lobotomy: "Instead of producing the hoped-for result, however, the lobotomy reduced Rosemary to an infantile mentality that left her incontinent and staring blankly at walls for hours. Her verbal skills were reduced to unintelligible babble. Her mother, Mrs. Rose Kennedy, remarked that although the lobotomy stopped her daughter's violent behavior, it left her completely incapacitated."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy#Lobotomy

Yes her verbal skills were affected, no dualist deny's the face that information[memories, thoughts, verbal skills etc.] get affected by a host of thing such as brain damage, lomotomies etc. But the question is this information being constrained and restricted by the brain or the brain is like a reducing valve, or is that information so dependent that it couldn't survive death?. Certainly this case don't tell us anything about this. It is compatible on both views, it's really about which theory accounts for all of the data. This is what the transmission theory does.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

It was bound to happen a member on James Randi's forum found a site that i have linked too on here called Skepcop. This site is created by Winston Wu who debunks the skeptics. Here are some of the comments made by some of the members of the forum.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=144802

Richard R says

No, not worth a looksee at all. This is Winston Wu's drivel. I wrote about Winston Wu - note how he shows up in the comments (May 20), and note how he offers nothing of value and doesn't respond to anyone's criticisms.

Really? says him apparently and this rebuttal of Winston's Wu's debunking of skeptical arguments.

http://www.skepticreport.com/resources/analysiswu.pdf

Here's just some of the rebuttal and my response to them

He mentions that Winston Wu is committing an appeal to authority when he mentions an psychiatrist view on the afterlife, he says that a psychiatrist isn't qualified to speak about matters on the afterlife. This is where he is wrong, because apparently this psychiatrist is getting consistent results from many witnesses who had past lives.

Basically this rebuttal creates several fallacies, without acknowledges that no fallacies were committed. Instead of addressing why their is so much anecdotal evidence he instead invents fallacies that are not made in Winston Wu's article debunking skeptic arguments.

Also i like to point out a good post by Michael Prescott on Anecdotes, clearing pointing out that some evidence for psi and life after death is anecdotal however a lot of the evidence for psi and life after death is not anecdotal.

Also it clearly is a double standard by skeptics to say that that believers use anecdotal accounts while skeptics rely on scientific observations. Why? because their are clear examples of many skeptics indeed using anecdotal accounts without any physical evidence, that they say counts as evidence against the paranormal.

Let me get at what i am saying here, that this rebuttal misses out on the fact that in many phenomena such as past lives, apparitions etc. A lot of those cases have colloboration of multiple eye witnesses with verified information coming through. To those cases yes you can say that their was fraud etc. However it's a double standard to say that anecdotal testimony is worthless when their is colloboration of multiple eye witnesses combined with physical evidence[ information being obtained from outside physical reality.

Friday, June 5, 2009

It's said by many 8 glasses of water besides juices, tea, coffee, pop that you drink throughout the day. However that is a misconception apparently because we can get a lot of water from the food we eat during the day. My Mom drink way more water than 8 glasses a day and does a lot of salt in her body. She doesn't consume it all at once, it is throughout 24 hours, she drinks water when she is at bed at night too. I always try to drink some water hehe, oh boy i am hooked on that old pop, especially pepsi pop i love it. I don't like coca cola that much at all.

Anyways back to water, it really is up to us when we feel thristy to drink water, its said too even before feeling thristy you should drink water. But I am starting to really like drinking water again.

In Scientific American their is an article called Fact or Fiction? You Must Drink 8 Glasses Of Water Daily. One quote i like to point out is this one which is very true and to the point.

"Water requirements depend so much on outside temperature, activity levels and other factors that there isn't one rule that fits everybody,"

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

The measurement problem is this an atom appears in an particular place if you measure it. In other words, an atom is spread out all over the place until a conscious observer decides to look at it. Here's a look of different youtube videos which talks about this very subject. Just is all pure speculation, but it is food for thought.